Microbitch (@Microbitch)

All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight, or The Picket Guard (1861) All quiet along the Potomac tonight Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming And their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon And the light of the camp fires are gleaming A tremulous sigh, as a gentle night-wind Through the forest leaves slowly is creeping While the stars up above, with their glittering eyes Keep guard o'er the army sleeping All quiet along the Potomac tonight All quiet along the Potomac, they say Except now and then a stray picket Is shot as he walks on his beat to and fro By a rifleman hid in the thicket 'Tis nothing, a private or two now and then Will not count in the news of the battle Not an officer lost, only one of the men Moaning out all alone the death rattle All quiet along the Potomac tonight There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread As he tramps for the rock to the fountain And thinks of the two on the low trundle bed Far away in the cot on the mountain His musket falls slack, his face dark and grim Grows gentle with memories tender As he mutters a pray'r for the children asleep And their Mother, may heaven defend her All quiet along the Potomac tonight The moon seems to shine as brightly as then That night when a love yet unspoken Leap'd up to his lips and when low murmur'd vows Were pledg'd to be ever unbroken Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eye He dashes off tears that are welling And gathers his gun closer up to its place As if to keep down the heart-swelling All quiet along the Potomac tonight He passes the fountain, the blasted pine tree The footstep is lagging and weary Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light Toward the shades of the forest so dreary Hark! Was it the night wind that rustled the leaves Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing? It looks like a rifle--"Ah! Mary, good-bye!" And the lifeblood is ebbing and splashing All quiet along the Potomac tonight No sound save the rush of the river While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead The picket's off duty forever All quiet along the Potomac tonight Ethel Lynn Eliot Beers (January 13, 1827--October 11, 1879)